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Rabbi Dr. Jay Goldmintz

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Rabbi Dr. Jay Goldmintz has been a day school educator and administrator for more than thirty five years who currently teaches full time at Ma’ayanot Yeshiva High School. He is Educational Director of the Legacy 613 Foundation, runs tefillah education workshops for teachers and has served as an adjunct at Azrieli Graduate School. He is author of the Koren Ani Tefilla Siddur series, winner of the 2014 National Jewish Book Award

The Soul of Parenting: My College Kid Texts on Shabbat

July 10, 2018, by

“Dear Rabbi Goldmintz: A trend I’m seeing or hearing in my college-age children and “all their friends”, (according to them) is a “freedom” from some basic religious limitations while they’re in college and yet, a confidence that they will go back to being “religious” when they get older, have spouses, families, etc.  More particularly, while

Is Faith Childish or Child-Like?

June 13, 2018, by

Religious development can be understood not only in terms of the affective domain, the emotional side of belief that we spoke about last time, but cognitively as well. That is to say, how do young children think about God? What can they truly understand? Given that their ability to think in the abstract is limited,

Getting Reacquainted with Your Inner Child

June 4, 2018, by

An infant has no sense of permanency – that’s one reason why they can play “peak-a-boo” forever; their brains are not developed enough to understand that you haven’t really disappeared behind the hands covering your face. A young child cannot understand that taking that candy from the store is an immoral act; hence you have

Religious Development – Finding the Inner Self

May 31, 2018, by

I am embarrassed to say that I came across the notion of religious development relatively late in my career but I do remember when I had my epiphany. I vividly recall seeing a twelfth-grade girl davening one day at Shacharit with what seemed like great kavanah (intent), something she had been doing all year. But

The Soul of Parenting: Readers Respond

May 24, 2018, by

I’ve been writing the last few weeks about what it means to be a spiritual role model for one’s children. Here are some responses from readers who recall the positive and negative exemplars in their own lives. My parents and grandmothers were my primary influence. Every Friday coming home for lunch the aroma of Shabbat

Soul of Parenting: How to be a Spiritual Role Model

May 9, 2018, by

We have been speaking about what it means to be a spiritual role model for one’s child. How exactly does spiritual modeling work? Social psychologists refer to it as “observational learning.” You watch your role models do stuff and then you end up doing it too. If only it were so easy! Instead, it has

Soul of Parenting, Are You a Moreh or a Melamed?

May 2, 2018, by

My teacher (and exemplar) Nechama Leibowitz z”l was fond of telling the story of a cab driver who once asked her if she knew what the difference was between a melamed (one who teaches) and a moreh (a teacher). Nechama remarked that she thought they were essentially the same. The cab driver then said to